Diving in Playa
So...I left Cancun and headed for Playa Del Carmen...another touristy resort but I had to go to experience the diving. Playa is another place with cenotes (underground cave systems filled with water...not a good description but I tried...). Anyway, on my first night there I happened to meet a Cuban guy NOOOOOOO not really what I wanted having just left the other one in Cuba. This guy had all the usual lines like ´you´re beautiful´and ´you have pretty eyes´bla bla...I spent most the night trying to talk about Heribel so that he would get the message but it didn´t really work, we found a Cuban salsa bar and had fun dancing but all in all it was a bit of a frustrating night: a) He would not get the hint even though I spent the whole night talking about another guy b) For a cuban guy he was not a brilliant dancer hmph.
I had a great next few days though as I did my first few dives of this trip. We went to the cenotes and it was a magical world down there full of stalagtites glistening through the light of the torch. The caves were pitch black in places making it feel eery and strange and in others the sun shone through from above to create the brightest blue you could imagine....the water was crystal clear and beautiful and the experience was one not to be forgotten... I decided to dive in a few cave systems and enjoyed every one. It was worth it to travel to Playa.
The Psychopath
The hostel where I stayed was brilliant except for one thing. They had a boys dorm and a girls dorm. In the girls dorm were a few nice people and also a crazed psychopath who thought I was trying to kill her. She was about 50 years old, had bleached blonde hair tied in a scrunchy, PERMANENT purple-looking lip-liner that must have been tatooed on (eek) and at all times she wore her swimming costume - yes in the evenings too...and to sleep.
The day she arrived she chatted away to me and seemed fine. On her second day I said hello and she informed me that I wasn´t allowed to talk to her. When I questioned this, she replied gruffly (and with squinted eyes for an evil-looking effect):
´´You should be under arrest for my first degree murder last night.´´
´´Sorry? I´m not entirely sure I know what you´re talking about,´´ I replied in an innocent sounding English rose manner..to which she responded:
´´Yes. You. Do. And that´s the last time you falsely accuse me of anything! I´ll have the cops come down so hard on you you won´t know what to do or think!´´
At which point I left the room.
My next few nights I slept with one eye open as I was then convinced that in thinking that I wanted to kill HER she would make the first attempt on ME. This was not helped by a bunch of Canadians telling me that a psychopath had just done something horrific on a bus in Canada and that it´s possible she would try to kill me. Thanks guys. Everytime I entered the room she stared me down and needless to say I didn´t sleep much while I stayed there.
After a few days I left for Tulum and a guy from the hostel (Darius) joined me. Tulum was like when someone raves about a film being hilarious and a ´´must-see´´ for weeks and when you watch it it´s just mediocre. The beach was pretty and the ruins were interesting but that´s about it. Things weren´t helped by the fact that on my second night I got food-poisoning (for the third time so far) :(
The nice doctor gave me some pills (I´ve learnt to go straight away and not wait for it to get worse) and after a couple of days I was feeling a lot better and ready to bus it to Belize.
Go Slooooow...
...is the motto in Belize where I stayed. Needless to say the pace of life on that island was snail like. Many times I was heckled at to ´´GO SLOW´´ as I raced through the streets at my usual walking speed. It was my first real caribbean experience with dreadlocks and joints almost everywhere you looked. My first 4 days there happened to coincide with the random storm. It rained day and night, night and day, non-stop. The usual activity ceased; no dive/snorkeling trips went out, the beach remained empty, the streets were empty too, even in the evenings people decided not to leave their houses and so the bars and (only) club were all dead. I ´ventured out´on my missions to buy banana bread and occasionally to have a drink...but spent the rest of my time inside chatting.
Mission
As it turned out I had chosen a brilliant hostel to stay in. The guy who runs it is called ´´Mission´´. He is a real friendly guy and cooked fish soup for us almost every night which was delicious :) Seeing as there was nothing else to do in the rain most people decided that smoking weed seemed like a good idea - and smoke they did! Day and night, night and day - and I got high from just being around them! The only one with another agenda was Fabritz, a little Italian guy with dreads and a one track mind. I guess you have to admire his persistence as every girl who walked though that door was hit on by him in some way or another. I opened my eyes one night to feel his dreads resting on my neck, his face right next to mine. When I asked what he was doing he replied, ´´You smell so good...´´ well odor de mosquito spray has not yet been discovered by Channel or Gucci so maybe I´ll give them a call. He soon realised that his best option was to return to bed quietly. Maybe one day he'll learn something about girls.
A ´´hole´´ lot of money...
Well one reason for my trip was to dive the Blue Hole. I did it. It was OK. At 40 metres down my mask decided to flood and wouldn´t clear, so that didn´t help much and the dive was interesting but not my best. When the snorkelers returned to the hostel they had seen turtles, sharks, eagle rays and more (I wasn´t at all bitter that I´d paid a million times more than them) so I booked myself on the snorkel trip.
On this trip I swam with huge sting rays, eagle rays, nurse sharks and more. It was a beautiful day and very worth it...the Eagles Rays soared though the water beautifully and I could see how they got their name. They were the highlight of my day. After swimming the free all you can drink rum was the icing on the cake (well it is the Caribbean)...
I spent a few days chilling at Caye Calker and when new people arrived we had a few house parties in the hostel. I met a guy and had a bit of a romantic moment under the stars out on the kayaks, we chatted and watched the phosphorescence sparkle in the water, it looks like stars in the sea and it´s the first time I´ve seen it properly. Nothing else came of that though as he was more interested in fishing than in me I think! Although I did have a pretty lesbian girl interested in me so my ego wasn´t bruised too much! I learnt how to dance to their music (punta): basically wiggle your bum as fast as possible and was congratulated on my karaoke. One day the scandinavian girls decided to cook hash cake...I had learnt from Amsterdam and ate mine very slowly. The girls ate theirs in few few minutes and were wasted. When I started feeling happy I went for a siesta, I had the best dreams ever but woke up at midnight!!! I panicked that it was too late to go out and I had missed the night, and then realised that everyone else was passed out around me too. I think the cake was a bit strong!
Well that pretty much sums up Belize for me! Oh and being fed delicious lobster at 3 in the morning by Mission was pretty brilliant too. I miss him!
Gooooo slow...
